Cordeiro sisters go from employees to owners of Party Dress Express

FALL RIVER — Sixteen years after she started working at Party Dress Express, Jessica Cordeiro can now call herself boss.

Cordeiro and her younger sister, Adrianna Cordeiro, started working at Party Dress Express when they were teens in high school. Now, the Fall River natives are the owners of the destination store for all things bridal and prom. Donna Holland, the former owner has essentially retired, but she’s still going to mentor them for a while.

Cordeiro started as a seasonal worker during the busy wedding and prom time when she was 16 years old. After she graduated from high school, she started taking classes to become a dental hygienist, but Holland saw something else for Cordeiro’s future. “She kept telling me you have such a knack for retail. Take a couple classes in business or a minor at least,” said Cordeiro. “I really wasn’t into it, but then she starting giving me a little more responsibility and she made me a buyer.”

Traveling to shows in Atlanta, Chicago and Las Vegas on buying trips and envisioning the people who would be wearing the bridal and prom dresses showed her an entirely new realm of the business, one that she took to right away. Two years later, Holland promoted her to store manager at age 22. In addition to buying, Cordeiro was also hiring employees, training staff and running the day-to-day operation alongside Holland.

That was about 12 years ago and even at that time, Cordeiro said she didn’t see herself as the owner one day. “She kept telling me I was made for this business,” she recalled.

Since taking over at the beginning of July, the sisters closed the business for a week to repaint the spacious 20,000-square-foot store, refinish the floors, reorganize and bring in new merchandise. In the future, Cordeiro said she may look into adding tuxedo rentals and possibly lingerie to the line of women’s dresses, gowns, shoes and accessories. “I’m excited. I couldn’t see myself doing anything else and I couldn’t see me doing this with anybody else but my sister,” she added.

Adrianna started as the website designer 12 years ago working her way up to bridal manager and bridal buyer. “She and I are on the same spectrum; we both come from the same background of buying and managing. We both like different things so that helps. She’s all about the bridal and I’m more for missy, social, prom/pageant,” said Cordeiro.

Their parents, Carlos and Donna Cordeiro, are very proud of them, she said. “They’re very excited for us. We put a lot of work into the store, we contributed a lot of years and they’re happy to see it going forward They want to see us have a nice future and with this, we will.”

The store draws customers from New York City, New Jersey, Connecticut, The Cape and Boston. Collectively, they have about 15,000 dresses in stock with new arrivals daily and 37 dressing rooms. They also stock dresses in price points that work with every budget. “Luckily, we have a big enough store that allows us to do that,” she said.

They also sell dresses in an array of prices for special occasions such as New Year’s Eve parties, military balls and beauty pageants. “This time of year, when we have a lot of sales, pageant contestants scoop up prom dresses. If they can come in and buy a dress for as as low as $50 that’s a big plus for them, especially since they need so many,” she said.

The store was originally located across the street in another former mill. When Burlington Coat Factory moved several years ago, Party Dress Express took over the space at 657 Quarry St. The friendly and knowledgeable sales staff and an alterations store across the hall also keep generations of customers coming back to the store. “Whenever I look at customer reviews, one of the first things they say is how friendly everyone is here. We truly work together as a team,” said Cordeiro.

Over the years, Cordeiro has seen lots of trends come and go. This past year, the trend for proms was two-piece dresses with cropped tops and floral prints. For weddings, the traditional-looking dress is always popular and these days, they’re seeing more destination wedding brides, who prefer to buy a bridesmaid’s dress ordered in white or ivory for ease of travel.

She expects two-piece dresses and florals to be popular again next spring for prom attire along with more fully beaded gowns. “The funny thing is, when I first started working for Donna these were all the trends at that time. It’s like the wheel can only be invented so many times so they bring everything back in and this is one of those times. It’s funny how history repeats itself” she said.